The History of Graverobbery
by Frankenslag
Summary: Graverobber has fled and is hiding from sight after the Final Opera, but he left a story for Shilo to help her get through bad times. A story about his family. (Rated T for some gore)
1. Graverobber's Final Will and Testament

Ever since Amber took over GeneCo, she had no more need to sneak around and whore herself for street Zydrate. So, of course, she did a sweep of the city for everyone's favorite dealer. Strangely enough, he was nowhere to be found. The only trace of him was a locked-up box with a piece of paper taped to it that simply said:

**FOR SHILO**

It was found in his favorite dumpster, of course. But the box was taken back to Amber, and for some reason, this made her furious. Instead of destroying the thing, she just gave up and decided to send the box to the brat anyway. It couldn't have meant anything special; Graverobber was just a disgusting corpse-defiler with no standards. What could he possibly give to Shilo that was worth anything at all? He wasn't the rebellious type...at least not anymore. That part of him has been dead for as long as she could remember.

For a moment, she thought about breaking open the box and seeing for herself what was inside. But then she remembered that she didn't need him anymore, so why keep around anything that should remind her of him? The decision was final. She took a car over to the house that was once Nathan Wallace, but had been passed down onto her daughter. Amber just tossed the box over the fence, not caring about it whatsoever.

Hours had passed until Shilo found the box sitting in the courtyard, and curiously she picked it up, brushed the dirt off of it, and brought it inside. Perhaps this had to do something with the key that was left in her bedroom the night after the Final Opera. So she retrieved the key, and to her surprise, the key fit the lock.

Inside of this box was a book. It was bound in black leather and wrapped in a single maroon ribbon, which she untied and opened it. It had no title or chapter index, although the first page was a dedication.

_To someone who has nobody left to depend on._

And so, the story began.

(**AN:** The rest of this fic will be told in Graverobber's POV. Enjoy~)


	2. Just A Boy

Hey, kid. If you're reading this...that means I've probably gone into hiding or Amber killed me. I don't really care either way, but I thought I'd give you sort of a parting gift. Not so you'll remember me, but maybe it will help you through some tough times, help you learn how to man up and take on the world. Yeah, I know about your whole life story now. Everyone does, it's been all over the news. And it kind of made me realize that we have a lot more in common than you might think.

Well, of course I never was manipulated by my batshit crazy father to keep me sick for most of my young life. That's rough. Actually, I hardly even remember what I was like when things were...relatively normal. And truth be told, I really don't want to remember anymore. I'm giving over my memories to you so that they'll stop burdening me and maybe help you. So. Back to my awkward eleven year old self. I believe the year was 2037, and Rotti was still working his way up his ladder of power. GeneCo was still in beta, disease was ravaging the land, and organ repossession was just about being ready to be legalized. I was a nothing, just a stupid boy that not even his parents worried over. God I don't even remember my real name...all I can remember is that my parents fell gravely sick. And they were beyond help.

I don't think I cared, though. I mean...they ignored my existence so why should I mourn over two people who wouldn't do the same for me? I did bury them, however. It's the least I could do. The only problem of not having parents was that I didn't have a stable home, either. And people were becoming very selfish and untrusting of other people. How could they trust strangers? They were filled with disease. So I figured the safest place for me would be in the graveyard, because honestly. What disease would want to prey on dead flesh? So I set up a new little home in a small mausoleum a few rows down from my parents' hole. It definitely wasn't comfortable and the only food I could rummage up for myself was rats. Yeah. It was bad. But I learned to deal with it and I stayed that way for at least two weeks.

During one late night, I heard something strange outside, so I was quiet and took a look for myself. Someone was digging up my parents...or _people_, rather. Four people, and they seemed quite a lot older than me. And they were all talking some nonsense about human anatomy and other shit I couldn't understand. I tried sneaking behind tombstones to try and get closer, but I stepped on a stick and they instantly caught onto me.

I tried to hide, but it obviously wasn't working. I was found by one of them, and he stood over my cowering body with a sort of condescending smirk. And your life really does flash before your eyes when you think you're gonna die. It's just a shame my life was stupidly boring at that point. But man, was I in for the ride of my life.


	3. Z

Of course I was terrified. I thought I was going to die.

One of them came over to me with a cock of his head and a smirk on his face. "This body's still breathing!" he called out to the others. He was tall, maybe about five foot ten and skinny as hell, donned in black jeans, fingerless gloves, a ratty white shirt, and combat boots.

"Well bring it over here!" another voice called out. A female voice.

The man before me held out his hand, which I was reluctant to take at first. "Come on, we're not gonna eat you or anything." he assured me. Although I wasn't sure how to take that, I grabbed his hand and he helped me onto my feet.

Te other three stood around my parents' bodies, looking as if they were deep in thought. The female of the group stopped for a moment to look up at me, and her expression changed from deep in thought to curious. "Well, who might you be?"

I wasn't sure what to say. For a minute or two, I just stood there with an open mouth, trying to think of something, anything to say. "I'm their son." I finally managed to say, and then was silent again. Not a very good choice of words.

She just looked back down at the bodies with a raised eyebrow. "Well, this is awkward..."

There was another man there, standing as straight as he could. His hair was slicked back and he wore glasses, and his eyes never left the bodies. "My condolences." he muttered. He didn't really sound like he meant it though.

Didn't matter, anyway.

"Seems like they've been dead for at least a week now. Have you been here since then?" the woman asked.

I reluctantly nodded.

She sighed and shook her head. "That's no way for a kid to live."

"What are you suggesting?" the man with the glasses asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

"Oh, come on. We can't leave him here."

"It's- it's really no trouble. I'm okay here..." I tried to argue.

"No, kid. You can come with us." the woman said.

"Are you insane?! With the kind of work that we do? He won't survive a week!" the man with the glasses hissed. That made me nervous about who these people really were. And apparently the woman took notice of my changed expression.

"Aw, look at what you did. You scared him." the woman said with a scowl.

"R-really. There's no need to worry about some nobody like me." I piped.

Silence fell around us until the man with the glasses sighed heavily. "Alright. Well, how about this. In exchange for your parents, we'll take care of you."

I didn't answer at first. How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I mean, yes, my parents didn't mean much at all to me, but why would they want their _bodies_? I looked down at the bodies, and they started to rot already. "Um..." I stammered, "W-well...I mean-"

"Alright, kid. Let me explain to you why." the woman offered, "Y'know that guy in all the posters around the city? The fat Italian dude who claims he has the answers to all organ failure problems?" I nodded. "We know he's up to something. With this new painkiller that he came up with? He can't be trusted."

"...You mean the owner of GeneCo?" I asked.

She nodded. "And he keeps collecting dead bodies for some reason. We're trying to find out why. Well, and we found out that this painkiller shit has people paying a fortune for it. So to fund our research, we steal it from GeneCo and give to the addicts. It might be a little sick, but look at what this world is turning into. Might as well adapt." She shrugged.

I was hesitant. But all that was left of my parents was rotting flesh and bones...so what reason was there to refuse? Still, I didn't know these people at all. "What exactly will happen to me if I say yes?" I asked with a bit of a firmer voice.

"Well, if he's gonna follow us around and stuff, he might as well learn our trade." the skinny tall man said.

The woman nodded. "Then it's settled. Kid, I hope you're ready to forget your past life because from this point on, you're going to become a graverobber. You're going to chuck your name out the window and from this point on, you'll be Z. Alright?"

I swallowed hard.

"I'm Hen. I make sure everyone stays alive." she introduced herself, then pointed to the tall skinny man. "Right there is Bullet, our bodyguard. He actually got an organ transplant so we're keeping a close eye on his contract." Next was the man with the glasses. "Atom is our scientist. A recently escaped doctor from GeneCo who's our inside man on the painkiller. Zydrate." And then there was the fourth person, a rather burly man with a black beard who stood quietly. "Here's Red, my right-hand man. He doesn't talk much, but he's pretty important." Although she failed to mention why, we just nodded at each other.

"Let's go get something to eat. I'm fuckin' starving." Bullet whined.

"We have to take care of these first." Hen pointed at the bodies, "And then we'll eat."

So we picked up what remained of my mother and father to find some abandoned building where I would watch them work.


	4. The Glowing Blue Stuff

The room was dark and musky, and it smelled heavily of mold. Not that I wasn't used to terrible smells, I lived in a goddamn graveyard for two weeks. But at least I knew that my nose was still functional. I could hear the bodies drop with a thud, but I tried to search for any kind of light switch on the walls.

"No, kid! Leave the place dark." Hen called to me. The only source of light was through one window that was caked with dirt and grime, so it wasn't much help at all. I could only see the faint outlines of bodies, but only when they moved. Nevertheless, I listened and stood still, waiting for something to happen. There was no sound except for fabric ripping, and then all was quiet for a few more minutes. I swallowed hard, standing as still as I could. Not being able to see was freaking me the fuck out, honestly.

And then there was a loud crack and squish...and a blue light came shining forward. And luckily, it was strong enough so that I could see the outlines of the other people in the room. But the blue light...came spewing out of the top of my mother's head. I was disgusted at the sight at first...but I got the strength to step closer to take a better look. And from closer, I could see that spots on the bottom of Hen's boot was now glowing the same color. I could only get so close without gagging from the smell that came from this, and I held a hand tightly over my mouth. "This is Zydrate." she started to say, "Stolen by GeneCo from the dead, purified, and sold at a stupidly high price. Extremely addictive...you don't want this shit in your system. Trust me."

Atom knelt down close to the destroyed head and held a vial close so the Zydrate could drip into it. "Usually we use syringes to extract this, since this way is more _reckless_..." he explained as he shot Hen a glare, and she frowned in apology. After the vial was filled, he handed it to me. "Hold this, please. I'll show you the proper way." He then crouched over my father's body, and pulled out a needle from his belt. I watched with curiosity and fear as he smacked the nose hard enough to break it, then jammed the needle in, and pulled on the plunger. There it was again, not spilling all over the floor.

"How...is it inside all of us?" I asked before swallowing hard again.

"Not while we're alive. At least that's the conclusion we came to so far." Hen answered with a shrug. "But we're leaving our good scientist to figure it all out. Right?"

Atom just nodded.

"Alright, great. We got the stuff, can we go eat now?" Bullet asked with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Wait, what are you gonna do with the bodies?" I protested, "You can't just leave them in here...f-for someone else to find..." I didn't want to sound like I was still attached to them. If I was going to be a part of this group, I knew I had to let go of my parents.

"Chill, kid. It's all good." Hen said as she picked up my mother's body carefully, trying to mind the mess. Red grabbed my father and we all headed back outside into an alley where the bodies were thrown into a dumpster and burned. I was quiet, and I decided not to look. Something about this felt so wrong, but I didn't want it to. At that moment, I remembered the vial in my hand, which I almost dropped. But I held onto it tighter and handed it back to Atom. He just thanked me and sealed the top before putting it on his belt.

We decided to go deeper into the city to pickpocket some people for their money, and then they bought the best food I had ever eaten from that point. Or at least that's what it felt like to me anyway; anything was better than graveyard rats. Although Hen started to laugh as she watched my reaction, saying she had never seen someone so grateful. But I don't think she was laughing at me, really. More at the fact that it was astonishment, I guess. Still, I was happy. I finally had a real family who could take care of me.

It's just a shame that the world was only going to get worse.


	5. First Time

((My first review is a good one! Thank you so much, ladyzydrate!))

Sanitarium Square was a rather new place back when I was younger, and its first use was for actual surgeries since there weren't actually enough rooms to operate in GeneCo's tower. When people tell you that the organ was fucking terrible back then, they're underestimating. However, there were some tents used for skin grafts and stuff, so the whole fashion was just taking off. Hen was disgusted by it all. Sometimes I like to think that she was the only one with morals left in the world.

Then again, she sold Zydrate to the world's more trashy people. So I think you can see why I was a bit confused at first. It's kind of funny, thinking back to the first time I had to sell. I wasn't as freaked out as you. (Yeah, I saw the way you wanted to get the hell outta that alley, kid. You're so cute.) I suppose the term "scalpel slut" wasn't quite coined yet, so these were more like...extreme cokeheads, I suppose. I can't exactly describe to you what Zydrate feels like because...okay, allow me to sidetrack for a moment.

Hen made a few rules about being a Graverobber. I'll tell you the rest later, but this is **Rule #3**: Do not EVER use the product you're selling. You will get hooked to it and eventually wind up not wanting to share really quickly. No product for the people, no profit.

Okay. Back to the story. Since there were more of us back in the day, we could split up and take different alleys. I stuck with Hen of course, and she seemed different when she sold. She was cocky, didn't take any bullshit. And it was obvious she was very outgoing about this. It was a big part of the job. So I took a deep breath and walked up to my first customer; a twentysomething curvy broad with her eyes half-lidded and drooling for the stuff on my belt. She reached for it, and I just smacked her hand away. "Pay up." I demanded.

"Aww, you're a young one, aren't you? Listen, cutie. How 'bout I trade you the Z for some candy, eh?" she offered in a patronizing tone.

I admit it did piss me off. I might have been just a boy, but I had to make a living. I looked over at Hen for a moment, but she paid no attention to me. I pushed the customer back a few steps. "Listen, bitch!" I shouted at her, "You're gonna give me my money or you don't get shit. Got it?"

She put her hands on her hips with a scoff. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" she asked.

"My mother's dead." I retorted, holding out my hand. "Pay up."

It looked like she was done trying to barter, so she just reached into her purse and gave me the money, and so I loaded up my gun and she lifted up her skirt. I didn't expect that at first, but then I heard Hen in the background. "Look for the vein, kid." she told me. And so I did just that, holding onto her thigh with one hand and inserting the needle with the other. When the gun went off, she threw her head back with a moan and fell over.

"Is...is she-" I was about to ask, but Hen interrupted as she approached me.

"Don't worry, that's supposed to happen." she assured me. "How much did you get?" When I showed her, she just shook her head. "You gotta demand more. That's only a quarter of what I usually get."

I frowned. "This is more difficult than I expected..." I muttered, looking down at the money in my hand.

"Really? Kid, you're twelve goddamn years old."

"Eleven."

"My point exactly. You're a brand new seller, you're a goddamn _child_, do you really think people are gonna respect you? You're gonna have to work harder than all of us combined, so man up. You've got a long way to go. But it seems our alley isn't very busy tonight, so we'll try again when they come crawlin' back to us. Let's go see how everyone else did."

We met up with Bullet and Red, but one was missing. And Bullet was drenched in blood, which made Hen roll her eyes and smack him upside the head. "Again?!" she scolded him.

"Wh-what happened to you?" I asked, keeping my distance from him.

"They weren't givin' me what I asked for..." he tried to argue, avoiding eye contact.

"How many did you kill?" Hen said with obvious annoyance in her voice.

"You killed people?!" I almost cried out, but Hen quickly clapped a hand over my mouth.

"Kid, shut the fuck up. Are you trying to get us caught?" she whispered to me, and I nodded with a shaky sigh through my nose.

Bullet frowned. "Just three. But they brought a lot with them." He showed her his pay, but Hen wasn't impressed.

**Rule #3.5**: If you kill all your customers, you'll stop getting profit.

After everyone was calmed down, we went to go find Bullet some new clothes that weren't covered in other people's blood. Atom joined us as well, and we were all a bit surprised. "Where've you been?" Hen asked with a raised eyebrow.

Atom just adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. "Discussing methods of payment..." he answered. His clothes were messy and there was a a little bead of sweat rolling down his neck, which made me curious. But it seemed that Hen knew what he was doing, and they didn't talk any further about it. I would only find out later what he was doing.

Afterwards, we climbed up a fire escape and sat on top of a building with some food we scrounged up and watched as the big floating screen floated by, advertising the New Genetic Opera, featuring the world's best singer, Blind Mag.

I don't know why, but Hen looked...sad. In a way I couldn't really describe. I wanted to ask, but I doubt she was going to say anything about it.


	6. Mag

Oh, I can remember the very first Genetic Opera like it was yesterday. Everyone was excited for this event. Such an amazing singer was amongst them, the only star in the world. Blind Mag. The gorgeous young woman who was given the gift of sight by Rotti Largo in exchange for her voice. In a way, it was quite a bittersweet story if you think about it hard enough. But nobody else seemed to think so. They were all just hypnotized by the soprano's songs and her gorgeous eyes.

But there was something that came with this opera. Mr. Largo himself was elected into power, which meant organ repossession was finally passed. I sat and watched the opera from the floating screen overhead while everyone else was selling. I didn't know why the rest weren't interested at that time, but they didn't care what I did because of my childish curiosity.

Truth be told, though, it was kind of scary at the beginning. Before Mag came on, Rotti gave a speech for his rise to rule. "Ladies and gentlemen!" he bellowed, "I thank you all so much for allowing me to take over. I promise you now that no matter what illness you might have, GeneCo will be the answer to all of your genetic problems! Say farewell to sickness and disease! Stare death in the face without fear, because I will be able to stop it in its tracks! The time of mass organ failures has come to an end!" The crowd roared with applause as he took a bow. But he seemed to have a sort of gleam in his eye, something that didn't look right. I thought maybe it was just me, but for the next few minutes he was on stage waving to the audience, I felt uncomfortable.

But then all was quiet again, and he introduced Mag. The curtains drew open and she stood there in a lavish ballgown with angel wings. She was gorgeous, and so was her voice. Everyone loved her. I'm sure you would have, too. She was great when she didn't sound so sad...

Every time she performed, everyone just kept loving her more. And she never seemed tired of it, at least at first. She performed every weekend, and by her fifth show, I asked Hen to watch her with me. Apparently that was a mistake, since her response to that was "Piss off, kid. I'm busy." And then she would light up a cigarette and walked away. It was strange, since the only time she was ever that bitter was when we did something really wrong and opera nights. I never asked why, but it was rather weird.

So when the sixth show came around, I decided to go off by myself and watch from a little closer.I managed to sneak into the opera house during the show, staying against the back wall where it was dark. Mag looked a lot different in person, almost like she was glowing. Her voice was a lot better too, although I think it was just her actual voice over the recorded version. There are very few times in my life where I can actually say I have been amazed by something. In fact, I think there were just three. This time was the first.

But when the performance ended, someone completely caught me off-guard and I found myself with a hand over my mouth as I struggled to fight against whatever was dragging me out of the theater. I was thrown into the back alley where Hen and the others awaited me. (Bullet was the one to drag me out.) "What was that for?" I asked the leader, as she gave me a stern look.

"We're goin' selling. The show's over and customers are gonna start searchin' for us, so we don't have time for that bullshit." She lazily pointed to the opera house. "Grab your belt and let's go."

I didn't question her, only for the fact that I didn't want to argue with her in such a mood. So I prepared my Zydrate, stuck my tail between my legs, and followed her to the nearest alley.


End file.
